Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1138
“To show forth Your loving kindness in the morning, and Your faithfulness every night.” Psalm 92:2.
IT is a notion of the Rabbis that this Psalm was sung by Adam in Paradise. There are no reasons why we should believe it was so and there are a great many why we should be sure it was not. It is not possible that Adam could have sung concerning brutish men and fools, and the wicked springing as grass, while as yet he was the only man, and himself un-fallen. Still, at least the first part of the Psalm might have fallen as suitably from the lips of Adam as from our tongues, and if Milton could put into Adam’s mouth the language—
“These are Your glorious works, Parent of good, Almighty, shine this universal frame. Thus wondrous fair, Yourself how wondrous then!” He might with equal fitness have made him say, “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto Your name, O Most High: to show forth Your loving kindness in the morning, and Your faithfulness every night; for You, Lord, have made me glad through Your work: I will triumph in the works of Your hands.”
The Jews have, for a long while, used this Psalm in the synagogue worship on their Sabbath and very suitable it is for our Sunday—not so much in appearance, for there is little or no allusion to any Sabbatic rest in it—but because on that day, above all others, our thoughts should be lifted up from all earthly things to God Himself. The Psalm tunes the mind to adoration and so prepares it for Sunday worship. It supplies us with a noble subject for meditation—the Lord, the Lord alone, lifting us up even above His works into a contemplation of Himself and His mercies toward us. Oh, that always on Sunday, when we come together, we might assemble in the spirit of praise, feeling that it is good to give thanks unto the name of the Most High—and would God that always when we were assembled we could say, “You, Lord, have made me glad through Your work: I will triumph in the works of Your hands.”
There is no doubt that in this second verse there is an allusion to the offering of the morning and the evening lambs, for, in addition to the great Paschal celebration, once a year, and the other feasts and fasts, each of which brought Christ prominently before the mind of those Jews who were instructed by the Spirit of God, a lamb was offered every morning and every evening, as if to remind them that they needed daily cleansing for daily sin. For then there was always a remembrance of sin, seeing that the one great Sacrifice which puts away sin forever had not yet been offered, though now, in these, our days, we need no morning or evening lamb. The very idea of a repetition or a rehearsal of the Sacrifice of Christ is, to us, most horribly profane and blasphemous, yet we should remember continually the one Sacrifice and never wake in the morning without beholding “the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world,” nor fall to sleep at night without turning our eyes anew to Him who, on the bloody tree, was made sin for us.
Our text, however, is meant to speak to us concerning praise. Praise should be the continual exercise of Believers. It is the joyful work of Heaven—it should be the continual joy of earth. And we are taught by the text, I think, that while praise should be given only to the One who is in Heaven, and we should adore perpetually our Triune God, yet there should be variety in our unity. We bless the Lord and the Lord alone. We have no music but for Him, but we do not always praise Him after the same fashion. As there were different instruments of music—the ten-stringed instrument or decachord, the psaltery, the harp—so, too, there are different subjects—a subject for the morning and a subject for the evening—loving kindness to be shown forth at one time and faithfulness to be sung at another.
I wish that men studied more the praise they profess to present unto God. I sometimes find, even in our own public song, simple as it is, that there evidently is a lack of thought among us—for time is not maintained with the precision which would grow out of thoughtfulness. There is a tendency to sing more slowly, as if devotion were wearying, if not wearisome. And too frequently I fear the singing gets to be mechanical, as if the tune mastered you and you did not gov-
ern the tune by making those inflections and modulations of voice which the sense would suggest if you sang with all your hearts and with all your understandings.
The very posture of some people indicates that they are going through the hymn, but the hymn is not going through their hearts, nor ascending to God on the wings of soaring gratitude. I have also noticed with sad reflections the way in which, if there happens to be a chorus at the close—a “Hallelujah,” or “Praise God”—some will drop into their seats as if they had not thought enough to remember that it was coming, and then, with a jerk, all in confusion, they stand up again, being so asleep in heart that anything out of the common is too much for them. Far am I from caring for postures or tones, but when they indicate lack of heart, I do care, and so should you. Remember well that there is no more of music to God’s ear in any service than there is of heart-love and holy devotion. You may make floods of music with your organ if you like, or you may make equally good music—and some of us think better—with human voices, but it is not music to God, either of instrument or of voice, unless the heart is there. And the heart is not fully there—the man, the whole man, is not fully there—unless the soul glows with the praise.